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The OP has some valid points. Surely it becomes obvious to the industry that just churning out dumbed down games that get dumber over time and with each patch just do not retain a player base. Also, like some of the replies here, many gamers are not prepared to put up with the old harsh penalties and difficulties of games past. With this in mind, is it not possible for the creators of these games to be more flexible; creating a MMORPG that's easy to play at a basic level - but can offer a deeper experience and challenge for those that prefer it. I don't know - i'm no game creator but for example... a veteran option, say sign up with an ingame guild or ruler, this would offer slightly higher XP gain - for the risk of losing some on death, or another penalty.

Zones where you know full well that the creatures encountered may loot some of your stuff or imprison your toon ( in game alt available or roll one to affect a rescue) The permanent removal of in game challenges just removes the point in playing. Things given and not earned just have less value. People enjoy a challenge, and as long as it's not just foisted on them then many will opt for a deeper experience. Most gamers have commitments with job and family, a more flexible approach would enable casual play and the occasional weekend late/all nighter.

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Must have. Buy orders is a great plus. Good filtering almost must have.

- drop-in-drop-out pvp with no risk, no long term implications/goals. Respawning during a match.

Some players (I think around 50% don't care about pvp).

- no chance to lose progress in a pve environment (aka lose gear). Why do you win items when you complete something, but don't lose anything if you fail? The balance is off here.

Games with gear durability that leads to gear destruction and regular replacement use difefrent equipment model - like SWG old days. In todays games equipment mostly define "quality and ability" of a character. So it can't be lost.

- all content is available for everyone.

Whats that about?

- waypoints

- minimap/zone map, and related gizmos such as quest markers. Do devs think people are crippled and can't progress if you don't give them a map?

Interface should be as helpful & informative as possible. Look at a one known game with player addons. What was added mostly? More clear and understandable interface. Hidden numbers and values were displayed and so on.

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TESO is not even trying to avoid those "traps" you mentioned. It's 100% aiming for the casual crowd, the "WoW" crowd if you like. On top of that, it's trying to fool as many TES fans into thinking it's going to be Skyrim Online, when the game is pretty much GW2 with TES graphics slapped on top.

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Clearly mmos of late have not lived up to expectations because of things such as auction houses and mini maps.

Where the fuck do some of you come up with these things?

Auction house alone is not a game breaker. It is a piece in a very large puzzle which comes together to create a very on rails and linear game experience.

Lets use the example of a recently released sequel to a successful MMO. The game is essentially divided into zones, and in each zone, you can do the following things:

- Heart quests

- Skill points

- Find waypoints

- Points of interest

- Group Events

- Vistas

- Collect crafting materials

- Jumping puzzles

Every next zone follows the exact same layout as the previous one. Do you see how a game can become shallow and repetitive if you remove all the 'inconveniences' or 'chores'? Do they honestly expect me to do the same exact thing over and over again in 25 different zones? It became boring when I reached the third zone.

The games don't make you do anything aside from your mob killing loop. Even all armor and weapons can be conveniently acquired from lizards, mammoths, deers, bears. Oh the horror of actually having to stop what you are doing, and figuring out how and where to acquire better gear, instead of being handed gear left and right. Why would a lizard carry around a steel mace of shock, or a bear live in some forest with a leather helmet of archery?

You don't have to figure ANYTHING out on your own, the game is built up in a way that all the time you have a clear goal, and you know exactly step by step how to acheive it. If you go near a heart, it gives you a detailed description of what the NPC requires, without ever having to go even within 50 meters of that person. The overall shallow feel is caused by the sum of the little streamlinings, not the individual parts on their own.

Do you see how absurd this has become? You can acquire a quest without even speaking to the NPC.

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Clearly mmos of late have not lived up to expectations because of things such as auction houses and mini maps.

Where the fuck do some of you come up with these things?

Auction house alone is not a game breaker. It is a piece in a very large puzzle which comes together to create a very on rails and linear game experience.

Lets use the example of a recently released sequel to a successful MMO. The game is essentially divided into zones, and in each zone, you can do the following things:

- Heart quests

- Skill points

- Find waypoints

- Points of interest

- Group Events

- Vistas

- Collect crafting materials

- Jumping puzzles

Every next zone follows the exact same layout as the previous one. Do you see how a game can become shallow and repetitive if you remove all the 'inconveniences' or 'chores'? Do they honestly expect me to do the same exact thing over and over again in 25 different zones? It became boring when I reached the third zone.

The games don't make you do anything aside from your mob killing loop. Even all armor and weapons can be conveniently acquired from lizards, mammoths, deers, bears. Oh the horror of actually having to stop what you are doing, and figuring out how and where to acquire better gear, instead of being handed gear left and right. Why would a lizard carry around a steel mace of shock, or a bear live in some forest with a leather helmet of archery?

You don't have to figure ANYTHING out on your own, the game is built up in a way that all the time you have a clear goal, and you know exactly step by step how to acheive it. If you go near a heart, it gives you a detailed description of what the NPC requires, without ever having to go even within 50 meters of that person. The overall shallow feel is caused by the sum of the little streamlinings, not the individual parts on their own.

Do you see how absurd this has become? You can acquire a quest without even speaking to the NPC.

I dont see that as a bad thing. I liked GW2 i stopped playing it because there was not enough content and i never got to any dungeon because i did not like visuals of a dungeon gear. I how that game was structured and i enjoyed filling zones up to 100% .... that is what themepark MMOs are about. You want sandbox, but that is not gonna happen in ESO they are going to start beta, it is too late to remake whole game. I dont even think there is any AAA sandbox with lots of players, because hardcore crowd is pretty small compared to people who like themepark games.

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If the box says Pegi 12 or rated T for teen, you know what to expect...

Or simply people that have actual life and responsibles. Seems like OP thinks all things that make playing easier and less like work are automaticly bad things. I bet average player of todays MMOs has maybe 1/3 of time to spend on game than average gamer of early MMOs.

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Who is the audience for casual dumbed down MMOs? Most of the AAA MMO developers seem to think that this is the biggest part of the consumers.

But it is, otherwise all the marketing research that publishers and game Dev studios do would result in them making different MMOs.

When you get $50-$100 million dollars of investment, you sure will do the best research to deliver the maximum profitable product for the largest player segment.

I'd love to see any research that shows differently.

Maybe folks don't realize that AAA game companies actually do extensive research about what will sell the most?

But what their research fails to do is figure out how to retain a large number of subs over the long haul. Most recent titles such as SWTOR, TSW and others really appear to miss the mark in their projections about how many subs they'll be retaining 6 months to a year out.

Blizzard seems to hold steady year after year, but most other titles (except maybe EVE) fail to grab people, they tend to consume MMO's as they do single player games. Burn through the available content, maybe create an alt or two for replayability, and then leave until the next content expansion comes out.

I'm starting to believe that the long term subscriber base today actually is about the same (relative) to what it was back in 2002, the big difference is the introduction of the more casual player who jumps in and out of them in short order.

Means the design of the game has to recover most of its cost in the first 3 months or less, so they can cut back and ride out the rest of the lifecycle at a much smaller scale.

Arrogant, Condescending, Dismissive, Elitist, "Meany", you speak as if these are bad things?Still currently "subscribed" to EVE, and only EVE!!!"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon

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Who is the audience for casual dumbed down MMOs? Most of the AAA MMO developers seem to think that this is the biggest part of the consumers.

But it is, otherwise all the marketing research that publishers and game Dev studios do would result in them making different MMOs.

When you get $50-$100 million dollars of investment, you sure will do the best research to deliver the maximum profitable product for the largest player segment.

I'd love to see any research that shows differently.

Maybe folks don't realize that AAA game companies actually do extensive research about what will sell the most?

Did the research conclude that the players want each zone to feel exactly like the one before it? Did it conclude that the players don't want to think, solve problems, but rather prefer to have everything laid out, predictable and clear from the beginning?

I think they might be assuming that casual player = dumb player. You can play a very complex game casually, and enjoy it. Why does everything have to be streamlined? Do casual MMO players want a game which basically insults their intelligence? I would assume they don't.

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Since the name alone is raping the IP, game has nothing to do with the Elder Scrolls story, I would say it doesn't take a genius to see they are just on the money wagon here. With being forced into a faction in a game world that should be factionless means it isn't even keeping to what the game Elder Scrolls is famous for. It will do the 3mo fail like all the other themepark trash that has come out in 10yrs.

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I am convinced that the game will be casual. It will most likely include most of the features which you described as negative on your list.

The game is designed for masses which expect these features to be present in the game. I doubt we will see many AAA games which are not casual released in the future.

AAA games have high costs. In order to generate profit, you need high revenues. The more copies you sell, the higher revenues you have. Casual games attract largest number of players. Therefore, they generate highest revenues which exceed the COS and generate profit. Hardcore oldschool game would unlikely sell enough copies to cover the costs related to development and maintenance of AAA game.

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Who is the audience for casual dumbed down MMOs? Most of the AAA MMO developers seem to think that this is the biggest part of the consumers.

But it is, otherwise all the marketing research that publishers and game Dev studios do would result in them making different MMOs.

When you get $50-$100 million dollars of investment, you sure will do the best research to deliver the maximum profitable product for the largest player segment.

I'd love to see any research that shows differently.

Maybe folks don't realize that AAA game companies actually do extensive research about what will sell the most?

But what their research fails to do is figure out how to retain a large number of subs over the long haul. Most recent titles such as SWTOR, TSW and others really appear to miss the mark in their projections about how many subs they'll be retaining 6 months to a year out.

Blizzard seems to hold steady year after year, but most other titles (except maybe EVE) fail to grab people, they tend to consume MMO's as they do single player games. Burn through the available content, maybe create an alt or two for replayability, and then leave until the next content expansion comes out.

I'm starting to believe that the long term subscriber base today actually is about the same (relative) to what it was back in 2002, the big difference is the introduction of the more casual player who jumps in and out of them in short order.

Means the design of the game has to recover most of its cost in the first 3 months or less, so they can cut back and ride out the rest of the lifecycle at a much smaller scale.

I though everyone here already understood that developers dont care to keep the masses with them, just to bring as much as possible in the beggining and remain with a lower but possibly stable population in the later months.

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another thing op, why don't you like TSW? it isn't casual and streamlined in any shape or form compaired to the usual mmorpgs. It doesn't guide you and hold your hand, their investigation missions are pretty intense if you wanna do them on your own without googling a guide, etc etc.

or age of wushu, pretty deep intense sandbox game with so many possibilities.

why don't these games appeal to you? I think you just don't know what you want, since such games are there, yet you refuse to play them.

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Originally posted by KaiserPhoenix

another thing op, why don't you like TSW? it isn't casual and streamlined in any shape or form compaired to the usual mmorpgs. It doesn't guide you and hold your hand, their investigation missions are pretty intense if you wanna do them on your own without googling a guide, etc etc.

or age of wushu, pretty deep intense sandbox game with so many possibilities.

why don't these games appeal to you? I think you just don't know what you want, since such games are there, yet you refuse to play them.

Actually I have 3 full sets of 10.4 gear in TSW, with the occasional 10.5. I have done the raid 30 times. I have the 5 minute kill acheivement of the raid. And I have completed every single NM dungeon. Oh and I have collected and read every single piece of lore in the game.

Under the surface, TSW is not deep. The background story is deep, but the game mechanics themselves are not. They make an illusion that it is deep, by having engaging and unique quests. But if you strip away the quests, and look at your gameplay that is not related to completing a specific quest, there isn't really all that much.

Only the skill wheel stands out as a positive thing. Trying to come up with builds was actually fun.

I consider gameplay depth and lore depth to be completely different things.

The faction conflict is shallow. It only consists of 3 PvP minigames, which, needless to say, only serve as a gear treadmill and have no risk involved.

Every single point I listed in my first post, is present. Provided, some of them aren't directly present, but you can use certain easy methods to get around that.

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All MMOs end up being the same in some way shape or form. You can't get around that. You have to keep in mind that 90% of the 'gamers' in the MMO community are WoW only 'gamers'. They started with WoW and only know WoW. So when they go to a new MMO they are highly dissapointed because they don't have any background as to different aspects of gameplay.

Back in 1999-2004 you were lucky if you had 100k players in an MMO...now they expect 10+ million. Well a good percentage of those millions haven't a clue as to what they are talking about or what they want in an MMO. They call themselves gamers but don't take the time to step outside of their box. They will be the first to tell you they can't stand WoW and want a game that is different.

WoW set the bar becasue the majority of people who play it don't play games. The best way to get out of this rut is play the game because you like it. Don't worry about what reviews say or what other people say just play the game. We all followed SWTOR so close and it was hyped so much and became a let down for a lot of people. It's just like when you go to the movies. Your are so excited about a new movie that when you watch it it's not very good because you overhyped it in your mind.

Don't fall into that trap with ESO and remember; you will never find a group of 100% like minded players in any of these MMO's.

Oh and to respond to the OP...sounds like you should stop playing MMO's. These aren't the droids you're looking for.